Nirbhaya Convicts Have A Week To Exhaust Legal Options Against Hanging.

Vinay Sharma, Pawan Gupta, Mukesh Singh and Akshay Singh – convicted for the shocking gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student dubbed Nirbhaya by the media in Delhi in 2012 – were to be executed on February 1.

New Delhi: The convicts in the Nirbhaya case will get one week to finish exploring all legal options, after which the trial court will begin proceedings for their execution, the Delhi High Court said today, settling the Centre’s petition against the indefinite freeze on execution placed by the lower court. The judges, however, refused to hang the convicts separately, which was also part of the Centre’s request.

“Delhi Prison Rules do not say that if
mercy petition of one convict is pending, the execution of the other
convicts can take place,” said Justice Suresh Kait, who was hearing the
case.

“Since upto the Supreme Court, their fate has been decided
by a common judgment, I am of the opinion that death warrant of all
convicts should be executed together and not separately,” the court
added.

“I’m glad that the High Court has set a time limit for the
process. The convicts have been delaying it, now it has to done within a
week,” Nirbhaya’s mother told reporters.

Vinay Sharma, Pawan
Gupta, Mukesh Singh and Akshay Singh – convicted for the shocking
gang-rape and murder of a 23-year-old paramedical student dubbed
Nirbhaya by the media in Delhi in 2012 – were to be executed on February
1.

But the trial court postponed the execution indefinitely after a second convict, Vinay Sharma, filed a mercy petition before President Ram Nath Kovind. As his appeal was turned down, another convict, Akshay Singh, filed his mercy plea.

The Centre contended that the convicts were working in tandem, using every possible loophole to delay the execution.

“The
accused are trying the patience of the nation. Such delays will shake
the faith of people in the administration of justice,” Solicitor General
Tushar Mehta said, asking that the execution of the two convicts who
exhausted all the legal options be carried out.

The four convicts,
along with two others — one of them a minor — had gang-raped the
young woman and tortured her with an iron rod in a moving bus on the
night of December 16, 2012. After fighting for life for 13 days, she
died on December 29 at a hospital in Singapore. The brutality of the
attack had outraged the nation bringing thousands on the streets in
protest.

One of the assailants, just short of 18 when the crime
was committed, was released after spending three years in a reform home.
The main accused, Ram Singh, was found hanging in jail.